The present invention concerns cartons for packaging filamentary materials such as wire, cable and rope. Such materials are typically wound into toroidal coils having an open center and a radial hole extending from the inside to the outside of the coil. A payout tube may be inserted into the radial hole to facilitate withdrawal of the wire or cable from the inside of the coil. Coils of this type are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,979,812, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The advantages of non-reel cartons for packaging coils of filamentary materials are set forth in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/675,755, filed Feb. 16, 2007, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. The present disclosure concerns cartons that are water resistant, fully recyclable and can be readily set up and packed largely by hand.
One of the challenges of making a recyclable carton that is water-resistant is providing a way to assemble the carton and pack the coils and payout tubes therein. Water-resistant, recyclable paperboard materials are known. One example is wax alternative material. Such material includes paper inner and outer liners attached to a central, corrugated medium. The liners and medium are treated with a chemical that makes the paperboard water-resistant. However, the chemical treatment of the finished board materials also makes it difficult to create carton joints that are glued together. While glued carton joints can be made with wax alternative material, known glues that will work on wax alternative material are not water-resistant. Exposure to moisture degrades the glue. Thus, any carton made of wax alternative material and that contains glue joints is susceptible to failure when glue joints get wet.
The general unavailability of glue joints in cartons made of wax alternative material greatly complicates carton assembly. While finishing devices associated with the coil winding machines are known that can automatically set up a carton and insert a completed coil and payout tube into the carton, such finishing devices require large capital expenditures. This expense demonstrates the need for a carton that can be quickly set up and filled by hand. U.S. Pat. No. 7,007,799 shows a carton that can be set up by hand. However, the structure for retaining the payout tube in the carton of the U.S. Pat. No. 7,077,799 is susceptible to failure and it lacks guide flaps of sufficient height to reliably align any dangling loops of a wire coil or guide a portion of the carton during closure.